Best Sports TV Shows Ever Made

Key Insights

• Friday Night Lights is the unanimous answer when people ask for the best sports TV show ever made, and it's held that position for over a decade
• Ted Lasso and Drive to Survive are the two shows that created the biggest new sports audiences in recent television history
• The list covers drama, comedy, documentary series, and daily sports media, because the best sports TV comes in every format

The Undisputed Top Tier

Two shows sit above everything else on this list, and the gap between them and third place is significant.

Friday Night Lights is the default answer to "best sports TV show ever made" and has been for a long time. It's a Texas high school football drama that uses the sport as a vehicle for one of the most honest portraits of small-town American life ever put on television. The football is great. The off-field stories are better. Coach Taylor's "clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose" has been quoted in real locker rooms. That's the mark of a show that got something exactly right.

Ted Lasso turned a Premier League comedy about an American coach who knows nothing about soccer into one of the most globally beloved shows of the 2020s. The first two seasons in particular are as good as sports television gets: genuinely funny, emotionally honest, and built around a philosophy about belief and kindness that somehow never feels preachy. If you haven't watched it yet, you're running out of excuses.

The Documentary Tier

Some of the best sports TV ever made isn't scripted at all:

• The Last Dance became a global event when it dropped in 2020, built around the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season with previously unseen footage and Michael Jordan saying exactly what he thought about everyone. It's the most-watched sports documentary series ever made and it deserved every viewer.
• 30 for 30 set the modern standard for sports storytelling on television and produced enough genuinely great episodes that it gets treated as a single landmark series rather than a collection of individual films. The Two Escobars alone earns it a top-five spot on any sports TV list.
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive is the most impactful sports docuseries of the last decade in terms of pure audience creation. It turned F1 drivers and team principals into binge-able characters and exploded the sport's US fanbase in a way that decades of traditional broadcasting never managed.

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The Comedy and Drama Picks

Beyond the top tier, sports TV has produced some genuinely great scripted work that doesn't always get the recognition it deserves:

Shoresy makes a strong case for the top five on this list, and newer rankings are starting to reflect that. A senior AAA hockey comedy that uses real hockey players in many roles, runs on genuinely sharp writing, and manages to be emotionally honest about what it means to compete at any level. It does everything most sports shows can only manage one or two of simultaneously.

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is stylized, controversial among people who were actually there, and completely compelling television about the Showtime Lakers era. You might not agree with every creative choice. You will not be bored for a single episode.

Brockmire doesn't get mentioned enough in these conversations. A comedy about a disgraced baseball announcer clawing back his career, it digs deeper into the business and culture of baseball than most shows willing to call themselves baseball content. It's the most underrated show on this list.

The Ones That Shaped How You Watch Sports

Not every great sports TV show is a drama or a documentary:

• SportsCenter at its peak shaped sports fandom and media in ways that are still felt today. Older lists still put it near the top of any sports TV ranking because of how completely it defined what a highlights show could be.
• Dark Side of the Ring covers pro wrestling's darkest stories with the kind of serious reporting and genuine tension that most sports-adjacent shows avoid. It belongs on every best sports TV list regardless of how you feel about wrestling as a sport.

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The Verdict

The best sports TV shows do the same thing the best sports movies do: they use the game as a way into something bigger. Friday Night Lights is about community. Ted Lasso is about belief. The Last Dance is about what greatness actually costs. Drive to Survive is about how a sport finds new fans when it stops treating itself like a closed club. The sport is always the door. What's through it is what makes these shows worth watching.

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FAQ

What is the best sports TV show of all time?

Friday Night Lights is the consensus answer and has been for over a decade. Ted Lasso is the closest modern competition. Both are legitimate answers depending on whether you want realism or optimism as your primary value.

Is Ted Lasso actually about soccer?

Technically yes, but really no. The Premier League setting is essential but the show is actually about leadership, mental health, belief, and kindness. You don't need to follow soccer to love it, and millions of people who don't follow the sport have proved that.

Why did Drive to Survive have such a big impact on F1's popularity?

It turned a sport with complicated rules and a small existing US audience into a show about characters. Once you know who the drivers and team principals are and what they want, the races become genuinely compelling. The format was simple and the execution was excellent.

Is The Last Dance a documentary or a series?

It's a ten-part documentary series, but it's consistently treated as the gold standard for sports documentary storytelling in any format. The access, the footage, and Jordan's willingness to be honest about everything made it something genuinely rare.

What's the most underrated sports TV show?

Brockmire gets the most consistent answer from people who've seen it. It's sharp, funny, and surprisingly deep about baseball culture in ways that bigger shows about the sport rarely attempt. If you haven't found it yet, it's worth the look.

Sports TV has never had more to offer than it does right now. Pick anything from the top of this list and you'll understand why. Then come back and work your way down.